Next-Wave Ezine > church & culture

Can We Still Trust God's Word?
By Ron Duty

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[This article was first published on Next-Wave in September, 2002]

Twelve miles, one bridge and a labyrinth of traffic away from my house is Cinergy Stadium (more rightfully known in my opinion as Riverfront) home of the all-too-mediocre Cincinnati Reds.

Here's my problem, I was sitting in the yellow seats of Cinergy watching the hometown faves and they were getting clobbered. Everything that Haynes served up the D-backs were launching over the wall. It got to the point where I wished the umps would do what is sometimes done in softball: After so many runs a home run is considered an out. In fact, I know there were about 25,000 people who would side with me against the narrow-minded umps, who kept putting their finger up in the air, making that obnoxious circular motion that signals a homer.

As I sat there with my $3.50 Diet Coke, I realized I had been delivered from the bindings of Major League Baseball Rulebook. There is so much more to baseball than just balls and strikes isn't there? What about the effort? What about the emotion? And really how up to date is that book anyhow?

But just as quickly as my moment of enlightenment came, it went again. The rules are the rules. They aren't subjective. If the ball is caught on the fly you are out. I don't have to agree, that's the rule, that's what the book says.

Swing three times and miss? O-U-T. Not one single ump is going to change one single call because it doesn't jive with my personal philosophy on baseball. Nor does he feel he has to give my opinion equal time or weight. And he is right.

I open with that illustration because the Bible, in our vaunted, enlightened, postmodern age is once again being viewed as subjective. Forgive in advance the polemic tone that may creep into the article (because Heaven forbid in our postmodern world that something sound less than affirming and tolerating), but I am passionate about my subject.

Rob Schapfler of Antithesis made an astute observation...

"We live at a time of unprecedented access to information, including information that would aid us in understanding the Bible. Yet it is also a time of unprecedented ignorance --- especially of the Bible. Why is this? It is really quite simple: we don't read and study the Bible anymore. Or, in reading and studying, we give it such a devotional spin that we make it say anything we want --- regardless of what God intended in giving it to us under the agency of the Holy Spirit. (That is what we SAY we believe... isn't it?)" Antithesis newsletter 08/20/01.

Much of the doctrinal deviance, inch-deep, mile-wide Christianity that proliferates in our churches is because the Bible is no longer held up as the THE written revelation from God, the final say in matters of faith and practice. Instead we sit around navel-gazing and ask each other "What does this passage mean to you?" Hello! How about what this passage meant to God? How about why did God want us to know this?

We have taken the anchor away and can't figure out why our people are morally and spiritually adrift.

The world needs to know once again that the Scriptures are fully trustworthy and sufficient for earthly and eternal life. They were supernaturally given to man (I Peter 1:20, 21), directly from God (2 Thess 2:13 & 2 Tim 3:16) and will be preserved for all generations (Matt 5:18).

The hope people need lies in the person of Christ, Christ is revealed in the Bible and the whole veracity of His claims are based on the trustworthiness of the Scriptures (Luke 4:14-21). Sadly though Christians are talking about having moved beyond the elementary fundamental belief that the Bible is the plenary, verbal, Word of God. As is illustrated in a recent article in Next Wave by Daniel Miller "My New Church part II" (Next Wave August 2002) .

Daniel Miller writes...

"The scriptures started out as an oral history that at some point was written down. Logically, there are many levels of error between that oral history and what we read today. Instead of fearing this possibility or explaining it away, for me the scriptures are more valid now because they are awash in the human condition--that human condition of transcendence and existential crisis that marks real lives in search of a real God." --This is a direct cut and paste from his article.

On the surface, Daniel Miller's article gets points for being clever and sounding cutting edge but....his comments are neither Biblical, as he casts light on the literal revelation of the Word of God, nor is there anything spiritually productive in them.

First, where is God in the equation of giving and preserving revelation, ala I Peter 1:20? Secondly, the whole comment oozes the same mentality that is being used to present the heresy (gasp!) of the openness of God that teaches God does not know the future and that makes Him so "much more real."

The Bible as the infallible Word of God to man is defined and defended within the Scriptures, have been held to for 1,000s of years by the likes of Jesus, Peter, Paul, Augustine, Calvin, Spurgeon and countless others. The belittling of Scripture has always been destructive as can be seen in the documented dying of liberal churches (I apologize for not finding the reference to back that last statement up. If you really need a footnote email me and I will find that reference. I think it was in a Barna statistic.).

It is so good to know that there are many 'postmodern' pastors out there who are not dipping their colors on the Word of God. Guys, like Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill, Ed Young of Fellowship Church and Andy Stanley of NorthPointe, just to name a few of the more well-known.

Without a certain, sure Word of God, we are no better off than the skeptic who doubts in the reality of a 'god' nor the pantheist who worships nature---because then Christians are just one more group of religious people making their own stab at who God may be and a way for us to get to Him.

Ron Duty is pastor of 1st Baptist Church of Alexandria, KY. He is happily married to his first and last wife Lisa and has 3 great kids, Zak, Alyson and Eli.

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